ABSTRACT
This chapter is a structured up-to-date review of the analytical methods or approaches used for the identification of the milk kinds used for the manufacture of dairy products and the estimation of their relative percentages. They aim to detect substances or abnormalities of composition that cannot be assigned to any of the used materials or the applied processing steps. Biosynthesized components or groups of components of milk, such as proteins or fat, or the DNA from the somatic cells are the targets of these methods, which are often combined with chemometric pattern recognition tools. Traditional, antibody-based, and “omic” methodologies have been applied for the assessment of the origin of proteins or fat in milk and dairy products. Very sensitive DNA-based analytical methods have been developed, whereas holistic approaches for the simultaneous analysis of a pool of components have been recently suggested. Most of the research findings are presented systematically in tables, and relevant drawbacks and limitations are reported. Considering the phylogenetic similarities of dairy animals and the complexity of milk, the choice of the appropriate analysis scheme requires a thorough knowledge of the properties and behavior of the target substances during the various manufacturing steps.
